It has taken a while for the land of pub rock to catch on to hip-hop. Just ask MC Suffa from South Australia's Hilltop Hoods.

"There's a much broader audience these days," says Suffa. "It's not just your straight-up b-boy crowd.

"Five years ago, hip-hop shows used to be stag nights, where you got 200 blokes and five birds there. Now it's about 50-50. I reckon the female audience feels more comfortable at shows now than five years ago, when there was more violence and a lot of attitude."

Hilltop Hoods have been dropping rhymes and beats for more than 10 years. During that period, they've witnessed the impressive emergence of Australian hip-hop.

"When we started, it was an underground movement," says Suffa. "Now it's quite big, and getting interest from the media."

Hilltop Hoods formed in Adelaide in the early '90s when MCs Suffa and Pressure met at school.

"We started rhyming at high school," says Suffa. "Writing rhymes about our German teacher. She was a big girl, to put it politely."

They were later joined by DJ Debris, who completed the trio. The group have since released an EP and three albums, the latest being The Calling.

"The album took 18 months to complete because we were building tracks; then we'd scrap them, then we'd build another one and scrap that," says Suffa. "The process took a fair while. We went through probably 150 beats when selecting what we were going to keep.

"Our style has changed a bit. We used to do more melancholy tracks, with slower beats, but this album is a bit more of an up-tempo, battle-styled, party record.

"We take the piss out of ourselves on this album. It's probably more casual. We're a bit more laid-back about [the recording process] then we used to be. Before, we were a bit too serious."

The hip-hop industry is often guilty of taking itself too seriously. Suffa believes some of hip-hop's players need to lighten up, but he acknowledges that such behaviour is not for everyone.

"Some people make records completely defaming themselves the whole record and that's their thing," he says.

"I guess it depends on who it is. With someone like Chuck D from Public Enemy, you wouldn't want him taking the piss out of himself. You want Chuck taking matters seriously.

"It depends on the person. But I think we all take ourselves too seriously."

The new approach has been successful, with national broadcaster Triple J naming The Calling album of the week.

"Album of the week is a good thing because it gets your music to a whole lot of people who never would have heard it and bothered with it otherwise," says Suffa.

Such exposure should help in promoting your upcoming national tour, then?